On 06-06-06 (Satan may have been involved), loyal Slovo Dne reader Mr. Dog made the following suggestion:
„In another edition of Slovo Dne, maybe Fred can explain why there is a street near the Dejvicka metro station named for the Czechoslovak „armada“. In English (and Spanish) an armada is a fleet of war ships, which would seem to be completely unnecessary here.“
Many people mistakenly believe the Czech Republic is landlocked. This is just not so. In fact, as long ago as 1610 the English writer Shakespeare wrote about the „Coasts of Bohemia“ in The Winter’s Tale. As everyone knows, Shakespeare is the greatest writer England has ever had, so there’s simply no point in debating this. If Shakespeare says there is a sea coast in Bohemia, there must be. Not only that, but look at the indisputable fact that the Czechs don’t have an Army.
Instead, Czechs have an „armada“. This is a large number of warships grouped together, as in the Spanish Armada of 1588. Armada is also the name of a Java applet you can download here
The Czech armada is justly famous for the Battle of the Vltava, when an invasion force of Vikings were stopped just under the town of Melnik, where the Elbe and Vltava meet. Captain Raeda Orm was forced to withdraw his marauders before he was able to burn, pillage, and rape Prague. (Later pirates changed this to 1. rape, 2. pillage, and THEN 3. burn — for obvious reasons). Today this battle is celebrated every June by drinking beer in the local hospoda. In the spirit of this memory, I’m off to the pub now to conduct more in depth research for the always extraordinarily accurate slovo dne. Thanks for the suggestion Mr. Dog!